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MotoGP champion Marc Marquez and his new Honda team-mate Jorge Lorenzo have both confirmed that they will not be fully fit in time for the Valencia post-season test.
Marquez crashed in both qualifying and the race during the Valencia season finale, walking away from both accidents with pain in his left shoulder ahead of an operation on it in December.
The Honda rider says he cannot afford to crash in the tests ahead of his surgery in December.
The reigning world champion said that he will have limited involvement during the tests, and will only try a few things.
“I’m one of the riders that, I like to ride during all the day, Valencia and Jerez is very important tests,” he said.
“But I need to be precise, not many laps, just of course my physical condition isn’t 100 percent. “So not many laps, just try to try the few things, and that’s it.”
Lorenzo is still recovering from his injuries sustained at Aragon and Thailand, which forced him to skip four races and meant he could only finish 12th in the season finale.
The 2019 Honda rider said his condition had improved during the race weekend, but Lorenzo has not fully recovered.
“The doctor that operates on me [said that] normally the injury to heal completely is about six or seven weeks, you have the cast for three weeks.
“I took out the cast after one week to speed up the recovery and to be able to try [to race in] Malaysia,” he explained.
“The last 10 days, the evolution of the injury has been very quick, as you could see in the dry condition [in qualifying] I could make a respectable lap time.
“Every day that we go through I feel a bit of improvement, I am a little bit better than yesterday, much better than Friday.
“Tomorrow I will be better, for sure Tuesday I will be not 100% but I will be able to see some important things and be quite OK.”
Cal Crutchlow, a Honda factory contracted rider, out with injury and Marc VDS disappearing from the grid, LCR Honda rider Takaaki Nakagami and tester Stefan Bradl are poised to be the only fully fit Honda riders in the test.